'Non-scientists': Bloomberg on vaccine skepticism

This morning, during his second to last appearance on the John Gambling radio show, the mere mention of the ill-supported but seemingly unkillable belief among some parents that flu vaccines can cause autism made him sigh.

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“We already do vaccinate kids. It’s required for measles, whooping cough, chicken pox and mumps," said Bloomberg. "Flu, unfortunately, kills more than all of those things put together, in kids."

“Especially for the babies, yeah,” said Gambling.

“For the babies,” said Bloomberg.

“Somebody someplace, I forget who it was, might have been an elected official, I forget, said ‘Oh, it causes autism’…It is just literally not true," he told Gambling. "I can tell what you what does kill kids is no flu shot."

On Wednesday, the city's Board of Health, which is controlled by the mayor, approved a Bloomberg initiative requiring all children five and younger who attend city-licensed pre-schools to get vaccinated for the flu.

Predictably, the move has prompted opposition among advocates who argue that vaccines can cause autism.

"This was a very closed process," John Gilmore, the group's director, told CNN. "We will most likely be filing a lawsuit fairly soon to overturn this. From a legal standpoint, we see this as similar to the soda ban."

Bloomberg thinks people like Gilmore are "crazies."

"You don’t have the right to stand up in a crowded movie theater and as a joke yell ‘fire’ because people get killed, they trample getting out, so there are limitations," said Bloomberg on Friday. "In the case of vaccinating kids against certain diseases, we’ve done this for a long, long time. And this is just one other disease."

"And measles has started to come back," said Gambling.

"These things don’t ever go away," said Bloomberg. "And when people stop vaccinating, then some kids get it and afterwards they say, 'Oh, if I’d only known.' Well that’s why you have scientists. Are scientists always right? No. They but are right a lot more than you and I are as civilians, or whatever, non-scientists."